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Here I rely mostly on live cuts which unlike most studio productions took place in real acoustics rather than being subsequently stacked, spliced and reverb-enhanced into artificial pseudo space. DeeDee Bridgewater's Live at Yoshi's contains bona fide Jazz club atmosphere which the Ember duly overlaid on my room. DeeDee enjoys moving about the stage which was conveyed just as clearly as were the locations of her musicians or of individual audience noises. A quick detour into modern classics via Stravinksy's Sacre du Printemps with Pierre Boulez leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra demonstrated how the Element Ember was perfectly capable to conjure up equally compelling spatial expanse for a grand orchestral hall, again feeling perfectly natural rather than blown up.
Again with Bridgewater the Totems displayed another trait of nearly uninhibited temperament. The percussion on her album exploded with such verve around my ears as though to deliberately have me flinch. This wasn't entirely successful only because I know the recording well and was prepared. The Canadians played it just as gushing in general and had no issues with more rocking fare. Faith No More's Angel Dust was right up their alley and its propulsive e-guitars and whipper-snap percussion unleashed unbelievable energy into the room. Particularly impressive were bronze cymbals because the Ember's treble region is in a class of its own. The upper registers are fresh and present but circumvent all sharpness. By comparison my reference Geithain speakers are more polite which I think of as a long-term virtue. Yet despite their greater treble energy the Embers avoided nerviness because they were well resolved to boot. The treble didn't scream senselessly but had something to say.
It was similar with the bass range. Extension was surprising and without upper-bass trickery to suggest more reach than was actual the case. Even the low synth lines of Madonna's Ray of Light remained well articulated as was acoustic upright on Le Bang Bang's eponymous album. Compared to mature floorstanders like my Geithain ME 150, the Ember's lower octaves were simply more rounded and less pressurized. A seeming paradox arose because despite this softer rounder bass texture the impression of unmitigated speed included it. The bass never boomed. It simply reached but remained quick and clearly defined. Thiel's SCS4 which for a compact box is quite endowed showed less bass authority and extension.
The Torrent driver truly had me with the live reading of Stacy Kent's Dreamer in Concert. On certain tracks the sound engineer captured certain very low sounds which I can't correlate with any real instrument. They could be certain room modes which only a true-to-20Hz subwoofer might properly reveal. The Ember drivers couldn't render them audibly but their suddenly extreme excursions tracked them nonetheless and blew air out their ports just as mightily. Despite being mechanically stressed, none of this interfered one iota with what was audible and remained quick, dynamic and at ease.
In the midband the Embers project equally forward to turn one on and throw taut rhythm and precise timing into the mix. Since I'm personally fond of vigorous speakers which deal in speed and energy, I can appreciate that not everyone likes such a presentation simply because one can feel called upon to pay constant attention. Here Totem's Element Ember has mastered quite the perfect gymnastic split.
For all the vivacious brio, things never get pushy but remain relaxed and sorted. This equates to non-fatigued long-term pleasure yet anything but boring. I found a possible explanation for it with voices. Female singers seemed ever so slightly set back. Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" from Back to Black was slightly less present fronting her band than how my ME 150 place her. She sounded more a part of the band and as such better enfolded in the group dynamics. Alison Mosshart's voice on "No Wow" from the Kills' album of the same name didn't separate out as completely from the synths' bass violence but didn't drown in it either.
